Distribution and control of private cryptography keys create a risk of the keys falling into the possession of the wrong people. The keys may be stolen, improperly copied or accidently duplicated. Once the security of the keys has been compromised, the security of all encrypted ciphertext based on the compromised keys is questionable.
A common solution to control the private keys is to generate and install unique keys into silicon devices used to decrypt the ciphertext. However, a significant amount of manufacturing equipment is commonly used to generate the keys, ascertain that keys are not duplicated and finally install the keys into the devices. The physical security of the communication lines from the manufacturing equipment to the devices still leaves the keys vulnerable to copying. Costs of the manufacturing equipment can be high. Furthermore, operator errors can still result in duplicate keys.